Director Brian Smith said this week: “It is probably fair to say that individual compliance schemes may well be relatively relaxed because they have achieved the targets in previous years and with exports increasing could reach this year’s targets.
“The concerns I have is that collection systems are not being developed which are vital to get material out of the waste stream.”
And, Mr Smith pointed that with packaging waste recovery notes currently below the 50 mark there was little extra investment available to fund new collection work.
When the PRN system came into force PRNs for plastics rose to a high of about 160 in 1998. That year about 100,000 tonnes of material was recovered and the best estimates are that about 200,000 tonnes were achieved in 2000 with about 35,000 tonnes of material exported.
Within the sector there is also a belief that the export of used plastic bottles and other material for recycling is likely to face more restrictions under international legislation controlling waste shipments. One issue here may be that while bottles are a relatively clean form of export material, as more material is needed to be recycled, there may be a growth in the amounts of more contaminated plastic sent abroad.
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